I. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to reusable surgical wrappers, and more particularly, to such wrappers comprised of synthetic yarns to thus have inherent barrier properties.
II. Description of Prior Art
The use of surgical wrappers has become standard procedure to maintain sterility of surgical packs prior to use in the operating arena. To this end, a group of items to be used for a surgical procedure are assembled together as a so-called surgical pack. The surgical pack is then wrapped within fabric webs referred to as surgical wrappers, and sterilized. The sterilized and wrapped surgical pack is then available for use in a surgical procedure at which time the surgical wrappers are opened or removed exposing the surgical pack contents for use.
A reusable surgical wrapper is woven from yarns into a web and finished, such as with edge stitching, tape, marrowing, or serge stitching to produce a single surgical wrapper. Many surgical wrappers are woven from cotton or similar natural yarns and may be washed, dried and sterilized making them available for reuse. Unfortunately, wrappers manufactured with natural yarns do not inherently provide an adequate microbial or bacterial barrier and so it became the practice to wrap the surgical packs with not one single surgical wrapper, but with two separate single surgical wrappers in the hope of providing a sufficiently tortuous path that the surgical pack within would remain sterile. The process of utilizing two separate surgical wrappers became known as xe2x80x9csequential wrappingxe2x80x9d.
The use of all natural yarns for the surgical wrappers presented the additional problem of linting from the repeated washing and drying of the fabric. Lint is considered a contaminant in the operating arena and so is undesirable. Unfortunately, linting would often occur before the fabric has otherwise reached the end of its useful life, thereby leading to waste, as the linting surgical wrapper could no longer be reliably employed in the surgical arena. To reduce linting, some surgical wrappers are woven from cotton/polyester blended yarns. While linting is not entirely eliminated, the incidence of linting is delayed or reduced, thereby making available more of the useful life of the blended yarn surgical wrapper. Wrappers made of natural yarns or blended yarns are able to accept chemical treatments such as application of a barrier substance like Quarpel material. However, after repeated washing, drying and sterilization, the barrier properties are substantially lost from those wrappers. Moreover, the practice of sequential wrapping continues such that a plurality of single surgical wrappers were employed for each surgical pack.
Where all natural or blended yarns are used, a single wrapper may be comprised of a single ply of the woven yarn, or of two plies joined together along their peripheral edges. Even with the two-ply reusable single wrapper woven from natural or blended yarns, however, the practice of sequential wrapping continues.
A significant improvement was made with respect to reusable surgical wrappers by the introduction of single ply surgical wrappers woven primarily, if not completely, from synthetic yarns, rather than either natural yarns or blended yarns. Synthetic yarns provide a surgical wrapper that does not lint, and which also has an inherent barrier property to microbial and bacterial migration without adversely affecting the ability to sterilize the surgical wrapper. Moreover, the synthetic yarn provides the ability for the surgical wrapper to be repeatedly washed, dried and sterilized without substantially losing its inherent barrier properties. Notwithstanding that a barrier property was now present, the practice of sequentially wrapping a surgical pack using two separate or single surgical wrappers of one ply all synthetic yarn woven construction continues such that two of the synthetic yarn surgical wrappers are used to completely wrap a surgical pack.
An alternate approach to reusable surgical wrappers is the use of disposable surgical wrappers. Such disposable wrappers are not woven, but instead are nonwoven to be disposed of after a single use. Thus, it will be understood that as used herein, a nonwoven wrapper is generally recognized as being made from materials which cannot withstand repeated washing, drying and re-sterilization, whereas woven surgical wrappers are made from materials that are reusable after repeated washing, drying and sterilization. Even with disposable surgical wrappers, the concept of sequential wrapping is still employed such that two separate nonwoven web surgical wrappers would be wrapped around the surgical pack. One product introduced a few years ago bonds two different nonwoven webs together such as with adhesive or the like to create a two-ply nonwoven surgical wrapper which is said to provide the ability to xe2x80x9csequentially wrapxe2x80x9d simply by wrapping the surgical pack with a single wrap of the two-ply disposable nonwoven wrapper. With reusables, however, the practice continues of using two identical, but separate surgical wrappers and sequentially wrapping the surgical pack.
The present invention provides an improved reusable surgical wrap and a method of using that surgical wrap which provides the effect of sequential wrapping with a single wrap, like that said to be obtained with the nonwoven surgical wrapper, but with reusable materials that are capable of being washed, dried and sterilized repeatedly without substantially adversely affecting or losing the barrier properties of the reusable surgical wrapper. To this end, and in accordance with principles of the present invention, two plies of woven synthetic yarns each having inherent barrier properties and adapted to be repeatedly washed, dried and sterilized without substantially losing the barrier properties, are joined together to provide a single, two-ply reusable surgical wrapper. The plies may be joined together by yarns such as with edge stitching, tape, marrowing or serge stitching, and/or by weaving yarns from one of the plies into the other so as to form an integral unit having interengaged plies. The two plies may be woven from identical yarns such that the plies are from the same woven material. The single surgical wrapper comprised of two interconnected plies of synthetic yarns is wrapped, as a single wrap, about a surgical pack while providing reliable and long lasting barrier properties as would otherwise have been accomplished with sequential wrapping. As a consequence, in a single wrap, the surgical pack is wrapped with the effect of two inherent barrier plies, much as would occur were two single, separate plies of the synthetic yarn surgical wrappers applied to the pack as a sequential wrap, but without the need to separately stack or sequentially wrap the two plies.
By virtue of the foregoing, there is thus provided an improved reusable surgical wrapper and a method of surgical wrapping to provide the effect of sequential wrapping without the need to use two or more single wrappers to wrap a surgical pack. These and other objects and advantages of the present invention shall be made apparent from the accompanying drawings and the description thereof.